The Problem of the Twentieth Century: a Study in International Relationships

Abstract

MAJOR DAVID DAVIES has given us a very fine and weighty book. It is an admirable illustration of the power of one definite idea, strongly held, to organise a great mass of knowledge and make it all subserve one supreme point. This point to Major Da vies is the need of an international police force to secure the obedience of the world to the dictates of the League of Nations It is not a new point, of course. The French put it forward when the League was first started, and ever since the critics of the League have been saying, “What can the League do to enforce its will, when it is faced by a recalcitrant Power, stronger than those, like Greece, Bulgaria, Jugoslavia, or Albania, with whom it has hitherto dealt? When a serious crisis arrives, will it not be defied and the world plunged again into anarchy and war, worse, no doubt, than we suffered in 1914–18?” It is because Major David Da vies has felt so deeply the force of this argument and the horror of the prospect that he has been moved to write this eloquent and persuasive book.

The Problem of the Twentieth Century: a Study in International Relationships.

David Davies. Pp. xvii + 795. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1930.) 21s. net.